"'Significant safety improvements have to be made,' Thomas Houdre, director of reactors at Autorite de Surete Nucleaire, said in an interview, making the regulator’s strongest comments on the issue so far. 'There is no way of managing an accident in a spent-fuel pool. We want the possibility of this happening to be practically eliminated.'

Since Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011, many countries have scrambled to reassess dangers posed by earthquakes, terrorists or worker mistakes. EDF is being asked to review its cooling facilities and the world’s biggest atomic operator must resolve concerns of regulators in order to win permission to extend the lives of its reactors."